


i've been living in bed

by everybodylies



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Captain America: The First Avenger, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, M/M, POV Second Person, War Era, be warned, wow this is sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-01
Updated: 2015-05-24
Packaged: 2018-02-11 08:42:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2061519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everybodylies/pseuds/everybodylies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The year is 1943. Captain America dies while in enemy territory, and Bucky Barnes becomes the Winter Soldier. AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Winter Soldier: The First Avenger

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea what this is supposed to be. I just took the au idea and ran with it. Hopefully you like it!

The girder falls.

You should have made Steve go first. You always fucking make him go first. But he'd pushed you ahead, and you hadn't argued because you didn't think there was much time. You should have remembered. There is always time for Steve.

"There's gotta be a rope or something!"

"Just go! Get outta here!"

"No! Not without you!"

Steve bends the railing and backs up. Fucking hell. He's going to jump.

You only stand and watch, helpless. Steve is big now. A body big enough now to house the heart he's always had. So you only pray and pray and pray (and pray and pray and pray) that he's finally big enough to help himself.

Steve falls into the flames.

* * *

You weren't perfect. You were Bucky Barnes, smooth with the dames, handy with your fists, and you were not perfect.

You were just a kid then, and sometimes you'd forget. You'd let Steve try to scramble over the fence like you did without any help, only to be reminded later, by ten minutes of relentless coughing and your hand on his back, why that was a bad idea. Or you'd run down the alley to tackle the bully threatening Steve, only to find that, while you'd been rolling around on the ground, one of the bully's friends had managed to sock Steve right in the nose.

You weren't perfect, and you felt horrible. And so each time, you'd promise yourself (not Steve because he wouldn't have it) that you'd be better. So time went on, and you got better, better, better, and then—

One slip up. When it mattered most.

* * *

The file on Project Supersoldier is closed, put away, forgotten about. A spark that flared brightly but never caught. The scientist dead, the formula lost, the results burnt to nothing. Almost as if it had never happened in the first place.

The story of Captain America is reduced to one paragraph in the chapter on wartime propaganda. Just a normal man, an actor, they say. Large, blond, patriotic. Perfect soldier. Another excellent example of American propaganda during World War II.

There is no official connection between Captain America and the night over one thousand U.S. soldiers escaped a Hydra base near the Austrian border. A few of the escaped soldiers claim, swear to God, that it was Captain America who freed them. It is dismissed as a shared hallucination brought on by hunger and dehydration.

But there is a story there, between the lines. If you know where to look. Not many people do.

* * *

Carter sits with you in the bar. You don't know her, but she knew Steve, so. So you sit with her.

You drink beer after beer, until your gut is going to burst. It just doesn't feel the same. They fucked you up in the lab back there, you're slowly realizing. They did things to you, and they fucked up your body real bad. Though, at this point, you can't bring yourself to care. You probably deserve it.

Carter brings it up first because she is more of a soldier than you'll ever be.

"Yeah, I got shit," you say loudly. Angry, but not at her. "Intel. Fucking good intel. Maps, coordinates, diagrams. You wanna get out a goddamn pen and paper?"

"I'm sorry, Sergeant. I didn't mean to upset you. You don't have to do this now—"

"I want to," you say, as a new mission begins to crystallize in your mind. Steeling it, darkening it. Taking it over. "I'm not going to stop until all of Hydra is burned to the ground."

* * *

Carter offers you the job, which is good. You're not sure what you would have done if she hadn't.

You're not a natural leader, but your men follow you anyway. They are good men. They take to calling you "The Winter Soldier."

"Why?" you ask one night, during one of your rare good moods, which are brought on when the cigarette smoke and warm camaraderie manage to numb things enough to make them bearable.

They assume you are referring to the first part. Why call you "The Winter Soldier" when you leave every Hydra base in ashes? (Even when you manage to take the base before anyone starts the self-destruct, you hit the button anyway, and you are always the last one out.)

"No offense, Sarge," Dum-Dum answers, "but it's the look on your face when we go on a mission. It's just… wintry, you know? Plus, it's so cold around these parts. It's hard to think about anything else, ha."

They are wrong. Not about the first, but the second. You are not a soldier. You are not doing this for your country.

* * *

"The Winter Soldier" sticks. The Howling Commandos are supposed to be kept under the radar, low publicity, but the rumors make it back home anyway. They talk of a troop of men, singlehandedly turning the tide of the war. Specifically, they talk of the leader, The Winter Soldier, who can hit a bullseye from over two thousand feet away, who can take on a dozen men at a time without breaking a sweat, who strolls into enemy territory, guns blazing, almost as if he is daring the Nazis to shoot him.

* * *

As your notoriety grows, so does your strength. Your men think you are simply learning, getting better.

You know the truth. It is not you, it is your blood. Rather, it is what they put into your blood during that hazy period when you were strapped to a table and poked and prodded and electrified and you woke up, only to find that Steve was no longer Steve, only to find that Steve was still Steve, when he still needed your help, and you let him down.

Carter knows. Or, she suspects. She looks at you, concerned, as you let your hair grow longer and longer, and your muscles grow larger and larger. But she says nothing. What is the point? Project Supersoldier is closed and forgotten, a mere blip on the radar of history. And what is done is done.

* * *

You used to have a different mission, once upon a time, but you failed, and it became null and void. Destroying Hydra bases is your mission, now. You like it. Every time a Hydra base burns, you feel like maybe a part of yourself comes back to you. And sometimes, you think, when this is all over and done with, you might learn how to live again.

Then, when you are stuck on a plane that is headed straight for the Arctic ocean, you realize that was a deluded thought. _This_ is how it is supposed to go. _This_ is how it will be made right.

Winter fought and kicked and bit and sprayed bullets. And now winter must die, so spring can take its place.

Carter talks to you over the radio. Even now, you hardly know her. But she knew Steve, so.

"You don't have to do this," she says. Small, clipped.

"I do."

"Alright, Sergeant," she sighs without an argument. She does not care for you. You are not sure if she ever did, but, if she did, she definitely stopped the day you accidentally maimed a Hydra agent during an interrogation.

"You're a good man, James," she says. She is lying, to ease the passing of a dying man. You did not do what you did to be good.

"Maybe. Once," you reply.

The radio cuts out.

You do not feel the cold.

* * *

James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes, a.k.a. The Winter Soldier becomes a national hero. There are books written, movies filmed, action figures molded. During Halloween, kids dress up in replica blue jackets, and they take turns cutting poses, dark and brooding.

He is not the hero that the propagandists at the White House would have chosen. He is not patriotic enough, warm enough, inspiring enough. But he saved the world from Hydra, and for that, he deserves recognition. And so, they do not cover him up. They build him a grand memorial in Arlington.

The Smithsonian runs temporary pieces on him sometimes. Whenever they are out of ideas, they take out the old artifacts and dust them off. The exhibit is always very popular.

Steven Grant Rogers was The Winter Soldier's childhood best friend. He is allotted three to four paragraphs, a minor speaking role, or a small blurb near the beginning of the exhibit. It is never mentioned how he died. Perhaps, it is because the information is not known. Perhaps, it is because nobody cares.

There is a story here, if you look closely enough. Nobody does.

* * *

(After. After you wake up in a shitty attempt to recreate a 1940's hospital room, and you run outside to find yourself in some light-filled monstrosity that is supposed to be the New York you used to live in, and you are forcibly restrained and brought back inside, and someone named Nick Fury explains everything to you. After that, you look to your left, only to see cold metal.

"Sorry," Fury shrugs. "Frostbite: one of the side effects of being frozen for seventy years. Nothing we could do."

You think about moving your hand, and the metal responds immediately, fingers closing into a fist. You should be upset, but you aren't. The metal feels… right. More right than anything has felt for a long time. You wonder when the rest of your body will follow suit.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So will I continue with a CATWS au? Should I? I have no idea.
> 
> ETA: I am now planning to continue this.


	2. The Avengers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little (not so little because this got a way from me) Avengers interlude before we get to CATWS!

"Yeah, I'll do the Avengers thing. Sure."

Nick Fury opens his mouth and then closes it. He's probably got another half a speech in mind, but you don't feel the need to hear it. You throw a few more hits into the punching bag. Left, right, right, left.

"Okay, then," Fury says, an unspoken _that was easy_ hanging in the air. "We'll brief you on the Tesseract—

"I assume I'll be paid," you say.

The look on Fury's face says it all. It says, SHIELD spent seven days digging in the Arctic and five days thawing a block of ice expecting a hero. Instead, they got you.

Fury regains his bearings quickly. "Yes, of course. There's no precedent for this, but we can start you at standard SHIELD agent salary—"

"Alright, sounds good." Left, right, left, right.

"You don't even know what that is," Fury objects, narrowing his one eye.

"Whatever it is, I'm sure it's enough to live on."

"It's sixty thousand dollars a year—"

You pull away from the punching bag. " _The hell_?"

"Sorry." He takes out his phone and taps it for a few seconds. "60k has about as much purchasing power in the present as $3,500 did in the 1940's."

"I'll take it."

Fury narrows his eye even further, and you are surprised that he can still see. "Well," he says, "now that you bring up the financial side of things: technically, you owe us for the amount of money it took to chip you out of the ice and then house you afterwards—"

"Thanks a lot for that, by the way." Right, right, left, left.

"—and also the cost of the arm. Which was not cheap, I assure you."

"Yeah, I guessed." You wind up and throw a punch with your left arm, sending the bag across the room. Fury doesn't flinch, and that bothers you. "So take it out of my monthly salary in chunks, right? With a reasonable interest?"

You walk over to the bench and start unwrapping the tape on your knuckles. Fury follows you, hands on his hips.

“Sergeant Barnes, it's becoming increasingly clear to me that you don't actually care about the money."

You shrug, not looking at him. Perhaps you should have been less obvious.

"So, why did you say yes to me? Why are you doing this?"

"Does it matter?"

"I don't know what you're thinking, I don't know if I can trust you."

That's actually a good point. "I dunno," you say truthfully. "Because it's what's expected of me. National hero and all. Because I'll get paid." _Because it's what Steve would have done. And if Steve had done it, then you'd have to do it too because the asshole needed someone watch his back._ "Why else would I do it?"

"For the greater good, maybe?"

You laugh.

* * *

"I gotta say, it's an honor to meet you. Officially."

Coulson wears his heart on his sleeve. Coulson looks at you and sees a giant. Coulson grew up on action figures and comic books and movies and biographies and seventh grade history classes. Coulson _believes_.

You are not the hero that he sees in you, but, as hard as you try to hate him, you cannot.

You nod, then look away. His smile is too bright.

* * *

You used to believe.

You used to have to clean and bandage the gashes on Steve's body yourself because you never had enough money, and you saved the actual trips to the hospital for broken bones or fevers. You'd scold Steve for being stupid and hotheaded, and no doubt Steve would be in pain, but his face would just get so determined, and he'd say that he'd had to do something—

“‘Cause if you don't do nothin’, then nothin’ changes, Buck. And if nothin’ changes, then nothin’ can get better, see?"

"You're dumb," you'd reply. And you'd smile.

Then you went to war. You were naïve. You weren't very pleased about leaving Steve to fend for himself, but you weren't too cut up about going to the front lines either. You figured you were fighting the good fight, ridding Europe of the Nazis and making the world a better place. You were a soldier for the great U. S. of A., and you were fighting for _freedom_ and _justice_. Then you went to war.

You watched men die. Men who had wives and parents and kids, men who went through basic training with you, men who slept in your tent, men who sat next to you in the mess hall that one time, men who you never even knew up until the moment their blood stained your pants as you tried desperately to drag them back to base.

You killed men. You lobbed grenades at them, you pointed your pistol at them, you stared down your sniper rifle at their heads and pulled the trigger, you stabbed a knife into the thin space between their ribs, almost surprised to find that, underneath their vests, they were just as soft as you.

Sometimes, you saved people. You'd drive the Nazis out and take the town back, and you'd tell everybody that they were free now. They'd be grateful, but, while they said it, their half-starved eyes were dead. Just as dead as the pile of bodies out back that contained the corpses of those who didn't make it, who you were too late for.

You got captured. You and the rest of the men resisted the best you could, uncooperative to your last. Whenever one of the guards tried to take another man away, you'd grab on and hold tight and snarl and punch until you blacked out and woke up on the ground with blood on the back of your head. But they just kept taking and taking and taking, and the men never came back, and it never ended. It did end, though, when they took you and they tied you down and stabbed you over and over again, and that never ended either.

Then Steve showed up, in a body that most certainly wasn't his, like some sort of bad dream, but it wasn't. Even your own government had turned against you. They'd taken your Steve, your sweet, sweet Steve, and turned him into some sort of weapon and shipped him over to do their dirty work in this war zone where he did not belong.

And so, somewhere along the way, you realized that you can't save the world, not really. All you can do is try to save bits and pieces, save the little parts where you and your friends and family stand in. Only, you didn't even manage that, in the end.

* * *

Banner seems like a good guy, and you feel sorry for him. You think if only you'd been woken up a few years earlier, you could have prevented the whole thing.

"Honestly, I doubt it," Banner says generously. "I had quite the ego."

Maybe he had quite the ego, but you have quite the hatred. Hatred of the formula that runs through your veins and kept you alive in a block of ice for seventy years, the formula that was running through Steve's veins when he died.

Romanoff is wary of you. She instinctively does not trust you, and you do not bother to correct her.

Stark and you do not get along. He does not like you from the start, but he really lets you have it when your arm accidentally deflects one of the blasts from Loki's scepter into his suit.

"We're supposed to be a team, Barnes," he snaps at you, back in the lab on the helicarrier.

"Sorry," you shrug.

The halfhearted apology only serves to rile up Stark more. "You know, _I_ designed that sweet, sweet piece of technology you shot me in the chest with. Gave it to you for free, too."

"Oh, yeah. Thanks for that, pal."

"Nick!" Stark shouts, and Fury frowns at being addressed in such a familiar manner. "Who the hell is this guy?"

"You know as well as I do that Sergeant Barnes is a national hero who I asked to join the Avengers in order to help save the wo—"

"Bullshit. We all know the stories, Nick. I got them straight from my own father." Stark walks over to you and stares straight into your eyes. "He wasn't a hero, he was just a stone cold Nazi-killing machine who happened to be on our side."

"Give it a rest, Stark," you say, crossing your arms and looking away. "It was an accident—"

"Alright, maybe you didn't try to shoot me, but you didn't try very hard not to. And I didn't see you trying to minimize civilian casualties either. You threw Loki straight into a unarmed crowd earlier. And in case your time as a superhuman has made you forget, people can't just walk away from grievous bodily harm."

"When you're getting lectured on heroism by Tony Stark, you know you're in deep shit," Romanoff mutters from behind you.

"You think you're better than me?" you burst out, finally tiring of Stark's tirade against you. "You treat everything like a joke."

"Yeah, well at least I care," Stark shoots back. "Tell me, Barnes, if the world ended tomorrow, if the big green aliens attacked and killed everyone, would you even care?"

 _No_.

The answer springs to your mind quickly because it's true. The truth is, the world ended for you a long time ago, in a burning Hydra base thirty miles east of the Austrian border.

The answer doesn't quite make it all the way to your mouth. You know how it would look. But you've paused too long now, and everybody's getting shifty—

You are saved from answering when an explosion rocks the entire helicarrier. Fury starts shouting orders, and, somehow, in the midst of all the chaos, it ends up being you who is sent down to the engines with Stark.

"Well?" you say, after gunning down seven of Loki's henchmen and Stark is still frowning at the control panel. "Can ya fix the damn thing?"

Stark's face is pained. "I can, but—"

"But what?"

"But I'll have to fly into the engine and start it manually. I'll only be able to get out if you pull that red lever at the right time to slow the motor long enough for me to fly out." Stark looks at you darkly. "I'm trying to think of another option—"

Something breaks inside of you, and shame colors the top of your ears pink. "Relax, Stark," you say, genuine now, "I'm not gonna let you die."

"Wow. That was amazing. _So_ reassuring. I'm so reassured right now. Not a care in the world—"

You shoot a glare at him.

"Okay, okay, I'm going. But seriously: don't quit your day job."

Stark flies off, and you try to keep the henchmen at bay. Only, there are so many, and once the smoke clears and the last man is down, you find a giant gaping hole in the wall where the lever used to be.

"Any time now, Barnes," Stark says, slightly panicked, in your ear.

You feel the extreme urge to turn away, put your face into your hands, and plead "sorry" and "not again" into your mic over and over. But you made a promise, so instead you stare at the sparking wires and grunt, "Gimme a minute."

“ _idon'thaveafuckingminutebarnes_ —“ Stark screams as you take your left arm and shove it into the hole in the wall. The electricity immediately starts coursing through your body, and it hurts like a bitch, but when you regain consciousness, Stark is standing in front of you, alive, and his eyes are grateful.

* * *

Coulson dies, and the pain is sharp, but familiar. It settles in your chest like an old friend, like it had never even left. Coulson dies, and Fury throws the trading cards down on the table, and the blood is on your hands (Literally. It’s staining your paper fingers.) and your jaw is sore from clenching.

You wish… you wish a lot of things. You wish you'd been faster, stronger… _better_. You wish you'd been there to save him. You wish you'd been there to hold his hand, at least. You wish you'd talked to him more on that plane ride, asked him about his life, his dreams, his friends. You wish you'd signed those trading cards.

You’re sitting and brooding on one of the steps in the stairwell when Fury enters and stands beside you. You don’t react, just wait.

“I made a mistake,” Fury admits after a moment, and, surprised, you crane your neck upward to see him staring at the wall. “I thought that it would be enough to have you fighting for us, regardless of what’s going on in that mixed up head of yours. I thought that more firepower could only be helpful. However, in light of recent events, I’ve realized my error.” He looks down at you, more serious than you’ve ever seen him. “We’re in some real shit now, Barnes. And when Loki finally pulls his big stunt, whatever he’s planning, I need people in there who I can trust. As of right now, that does not include you.”

But you can _help_. You are deadly, efficient. You can take out an entire room of soldiers with nothing but your fists. You quickly open your mouth to protest. “Sir—”

“I need to know that you’re in this for real. I need to know that your head’s in the right place. I need to know that, when it comes down to it, you’ll do whatever it takes. You tell me right now, Barnes, or I swear I’ll send you home. What the world needs right now is a hero, not another loose cannon.”

You stand up, and the words come easy with a certainty that you did not know you possessed. “For Coulson,” you say. “For this planet, for all the little guys who were too damn stubborn to know when they were beat, I am _in this_ , sir.”

Fury’s shoulders slump, betraying, for a moment, the massive amount of stress the man is under. “Dammit,” he says, closing his eye, “I believe you. Fuck, I don’t know why, but I believe you.”

* * *

You start the battle off by heading to the epicenter of the chaos and systematically taking out each and every Chitauri you can get your hands on. Violence has always helped silence the dark thoughts that cloud your mind, whether it was rolling around in the alleys of Brooklyn or punching Nazis with the Howling Commandos at your back. This is no different, and if the entire planet weren’t at stake, you might say you were enjoying yourself.

However, you quickly realize that your abilities are better utilized elsewhere. Stark, Thor, and the Hulk are all taking down swathes of Chitauri at a much higher rate than you can from the ground. At the same time, the NYPD is floundering, split too wide, failing to evacuate much of anything.

“Lead the people out through the back,” an officer orders into his radio. “Take them down 32nd and out of the perimeter.”

“You really think that’s a good idea, buddy?”

The officer whips around and stares at you suspiciously. It occurs to you that you are wearing black kevlar head to toe and an entire armory on your back. You do not look like the most trustworthy person at the moment. You try for a smile to put the officer at ease, but your skills are rusty, and it’s not the same smile that you used to flash at your disgruntled teachers or the dames on the street.

“You take people aboveground, they’re either gonna be crushed by the falling buildings or slaughtered by aliens,” you explain. “Take them into the subway and evacuate them that way. They’ll be safe. I can provide suppressive fire.”

“And who the hell are you supposed to be?” the officer asks, arms crossed.

You roll your eyes. “Failed out of high school, did ya?” Without turning around, you grab a thrown Chitauri spear out of the air and fire it back, impaling the approaching alien with his own weapon. The officer looks at you with awe in his eyes now, recognition entering his features. “I’m the Winter Soldier. And I’m here to help.”

* * *

You watch as the Hulk rescues Iron Man from the air and Thor rips the suit’s mask off, and you pray and pray and pray. You think that maybe you should be used to losing soldiers by now, that after the war, after Steve, after Coulson not twenty-four hours ago, you should be out of grief, run dry. But, no, each and every time feels like the first time, and you just get lower, lower, low—

The Hulk roars, and Stark’s eyes pop open. “What the hell? What just happened? Please tell me nobody kissed me.”

You can’t help it; your face falls into a grin. “We won.”

“Alright. Hey. Alright. Good job, guys. Let’s just not come in tomorrow. Let’s just take a day. Have you ever tried shawarma? There’s a shawarma joint around two blocks from here. I don’t know what it is, but I wanna try it.”

“You heard the man,” you say, pulling Stark up and clapping a hand on his shoulder. “Shawarma it is.”

“We’re not finished yet,” Thor objects darkly, though it doesn’t ruin your mood. For the first time in a long time, you feel like you can breathe.

* * *

The television in the shawarma place still works, miraculously. You watch it idly out of the corner of your eye, as it airs interview after interview of disgruntled New York citizens, calling for SHIELD to be shut down and for the Avengers to be held accountable.

“Ungrateful,” Barton scoffs, only half joking, and an uneasiness settles in your stomach.

Then, a face on the screen catches your eye. A woman, blonde, you’d helped her to safety down at the bank. “The Winter Soldier saved my life,” she says, looking straight at the camera, at your eyes. “Wherever he is, and wherever any of them are, I would just… I would wanna say thank you.”

You stare blankly at the screen for a long time after that, wishing you were back in your SHIELD apartment with the remote that could pause and rewind the television. But you aren’t. Instead, you just rewind and replay the interview in you mind, and you think, and you think _okay_. _Okay, alright._

Eventually, your mind returns to the present, and you look around to see Barton and Romanoff whispering to each other, Banner comforting a sorrowful Thor with calm words. You look to your left, to Stark who is happily munching on his hard-earned meal, and tap his metal foot with yours. He turns to you, eyebrows raised.

“Hey, I'm, uh, glad you're alive,” you say.

“Odd words coming from a man who tried to kill me yesterday," Stark replies, keeping his face decidedly blank.

You sigh deeply. “Yeah, well, like I keep tryin' to tell ya, that was an _accident_ —”

Stark interrupts you by patting you warmly on the back and grinning. "I know, big boy. I know. Hey, I’m glad you're alive, too."

* * *

You head up to Fury's office with a jumble of thoughts in your mind. You need to talk to him, explain to him that things feel… easier. That now, only now and truly now, do you feel that you have woken up, thawed out. You want to get rid of this fucking salary, whose dumb idea was that—then, you find Fury muttering angrily to himself and packing his things into a cardboard box.

"Sir?" you say, a little dully.

Fury looks up, mouth open to start shouting, then reconsiders. "Barnes. Come over here. I wanna lay some truth on you before I go," he says, beckoning to you with his hand.

"Sir, if this is because of the bomb, you obviously did the right thing! They can't do this—"

"Barnes. Here. Now."

Wordlessly, you obey.

"You wanna know the goddamn truth? Here it is: the government don't give a shit what you do, as long as it's exactly the fuck what they tell you to do."

"… It sounds like you're telling me they do give a shit about what you do."

Fury stares at you, as though he has just changed his mind about something. His mouth is a hard line, but his eyes are soft. "You're a simple man, Barnes," he says sincerely, no offense meant. "I hope no one takes advantage of that. Good luck."

And with that, Fury takes his boxes and walks out.

You watch him, and your head spins. You stare at the empty office and try to determine where exactly it is that you have placed your loyalties.

"Wait, sir," you call to him before he reaches the elevator, "who's replacing you?"

"Man named Alexander Pierce," Fury calls back over his shoulder.

* * *

(Alexander Pierce shakes your hand warmly, and then rejects your attempt to eliminate your salary. Instead, he gives you a raise.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to give me concrit, especially on Bucky's characterization. :)


	3. The Winter Soldier: Captain America (Part 1)

You lose yourself when you run. The trees and buildings and sky all blur together, and you only focus when you need to pass someone and you pull your thoughts together and say,

"On your left—"

You find yourself on the ground, face throbbing.

Leisurely, you stand back up, more curious as to who would actually have the stones to punch The Winter Soldier than angry about it. You've known that anti-SHIELD sentiment has been growing lately, but this seems a little extreme.

Your gaze lands on a man. Tall, almost as tall as you but not quite, dark brown skin, wearing running clothes and a smug, satisfied smile.

"You know," you say, more casual than threatening, "I can hit a lot harder than that using my bad arm."

"Which one's the bad one?" The man doesn't seem scared at all, and it makes you feel odd, almost sad.

You point to your right arm with your left, and then, to impress, you turn to your right and show the man the rippling of the metal plates.

"Yeah, that's what I guessed," the man says, still entirely unconcerned.

The man offers nothing else, and eventually you say, "Uh. So. Why did you feel the need to punch me? On such a nice spring morning, too?"

"Oh, really? Seriously? You're gonna play the 'innocent' card? _Seriously_?" Confused, you raise your eyebrows and don't answer. "Okay, fine. I'll bite. Fine." The man steps closer, within your reach, and jabs a finger at your chest. "Buddy, you've been taunting me for the past week!"

"… Taunting you?"

"'On your left,'" the man says in a strange voice that you figure is supposed to be yours. "Sound familiar?"

"… Yes? It's the phrase I use to tell others, _very politely_ , that I am about to pass them. _On their left side._ "

"Yeah, it's the phrase you shout at me a dozen times a day. At every point along my jogging route. Almost like you're following me, just so you can do that."

You stare at the man, dumbfounded. "I didn't know you invented the idea of jogging around the National Mall, punk."

The man stares back for a moment more, then slumps his shoulders. "Alright, fine. I believe you. See, I'm actually a nice guy, most of the time. When I'm not being provoked. Sam Wilson," he says, extending a hand. "Sorry about hitting you. Really."

You pause, half a second, then shake Sam's hand. "Bucky Barnes."

"Nice to officially meet you, Bucky Barnes. Y'know, I played you in my fifth grade play. The Black Winter Soldier. The racial aspect actually makes the story a lot more complex. And interesting, in my opinion. Uh. For the fifth graders." Listening to Sam talk, you find yourself smiling. "You should come by the VA sometime. That's where I work, as a counselor."

"You tryin' to say I need mental help?"

"I'm tryin' to say we all do, brother. No shame in it."

You shrug, and you surprise yourself. "Yeah, maybe I will."

Sam smiles warmly until his expression changes. "Uh, I think that guy in the car is trying to get your attention."

You turn. Pierce. He waves at you from the black BMW, and you nod. He then waves at Sam who waves back uncomfortably.

Back to Sam for a second before you go, you rub your jaw, still tender, and say, "Geez, Sam, didn't nobody tell you to pick on somebody your own size?"

Sam grins. "Where's the fun in that?"

Your chest tight, you turn and walk away.

* * *

“Rumor has it you went out with Kristin from Statistics Friday night.” Romanoff says, her voice teasing, as you strap a rifle to your back. You’ve been assigned a lot of missions with her recently, and she’s been warming up to you.

You raise an eyebrow and smirk; you’d never really seen her as the gossip type. “Yeah, well rumor also has it that you dye your hair red with the blood of your enemies,” you counter. “You really gonna believe everything you hear?”

“She’s pretty hot,” Romanoff continues, regardless. “But she’s probably too smart for you.”

You like Romanoff. You like this give and take that’s so easy to slip into. It’s nice.

“I’m sure you’re used to that,” you say, stepping off the plane into the air.

* * *

You insert the flash drive into the ship's computer and start the program, then sit back and wait, as you were instructed.

"You're not supposed to be here," you say, after a moment.

Romanoff melts out of the shadows. "Neither are you," she retorts.

She walks over to you and observes the computer screen. You tense, but she doesn't make a move.

"You're… erasing SHIELD data," she deduces. Then, she turns on you. "This isn't part of the mission."

“Nah, just not part of yours.”

"Rumlow needed help with the hostages. You put everybody at risk."

"I'm just followin’ orders," you say, holding your hands up innocently. "Why do you care? I thought you'd be used to this sort of thing, being a spy and all."

"Maybe I should be. But now…” She looks at you and trails off, deciding not to finish that statement. Still, you know what she is thinking. Natasha Romanoff was one of Nick Fury's right hand men. But, these days, it is Alexander Pierce in charge, and she is floundering, no longer inclined to accept orders without any explanation.

The computer dings, and Romanoff watches darkly as you collect the flash drive and shut everything off. Briefly, you wonder what it was that you erased.

* * *

Pierce is standing by the window and staring at the D.C. skyline, when you are shown into his office. "Congratulations on a successful hostage recovery, Sergeant," he says amiably, turning around.

"Thank you, sir."

“Have a seat,” Pierce suggests. “You must be tired.”

“I’m fine, I—“

“No, really I insist.”

You sit down, perching uncomfortably on the edge of the chair. You are always uncomfortable in Pierce’s office. There’s still blood from last night’s mission staining your uniform, while this office is so sanitary and so removed, and you don’t think you’ll ever really get used to it, after a lifetime of fighting in trenches, blinking the mud away from your eyes.

"Thirsty?” Pierce asks, still standing. “The only drink I've got is milk, unfortunately."

"Um—“

Before you can respond, Pierce places a glass of thick, frothy milk in front of you.

"Sir," you say, ignoring the glass, "I wanted to talk to you about the covert mission you assigned to me."

Pierce sighs. "Yes, I am aware that Agent Romanoff learned of your actions.” He quickly smiles at you. “You don’t need to worry, Sergeant Barnes. You followed your orders to a tee, and in any case, you are not a trained spy; I don’t blame you for being discovered. Everything is being taken care of, and Agent Romanoff has been… talked to.”

“That’s not—er, thank you, but—that’s not, um…“ You trail off when Pierce looks at you, slight irritation showing in the set of his jaw. You hate yourself for it, but you’ve always been better at following orders than questioning them, finishing things rather than starting them.

You clear your throat and down half of the milk. The action seems to placate Pierce, his face softening, and emboldened, you forge ahead. “That’s not what I was worried about, actually.”

“Well, spit it out, Sergeant,” Pierce says, his smile close-lipped and friendly. “You know you can talk to me about anything.”

“I dunno how I feel about performing covert missions,” you say honestly. “It’s hard enough to get people to trust me as it is. And soldiers should trust each other.”

Pierce walks around his desk and thumps you on the back affectionately. “Ah, Sergeant,” he sighs. “I completely understand. It’s not easy to keep secrets from those you care about.” He heads toward the door. “Come on, there’s something I should show you.”

You follow Pierce into the elevator. Through the glass, you have a clear view of the crowd gathered around the Triskelion entrance, holding picket signs and chanting. The protests aren’t too frequent—about one every three weeks, and the White House sees more action in a day—but it’s enough to make you nervous. What the hell have you been doing, what the hell have you been fighting for, if the people of America keep showing up on your doorstep telling you to stop?

Pierce follows your gaze down and sighs. “Same two-hundred wackos every month. I know a few of them by name at this point. Look, there’s Freddie and his wife Anita. Really nice couple once you get to know them, ha.”

“Ha,” you say.

As the elevator descends, the cheers of the crowd grow louder to the point where you can distinguish the words. “Surrender the Avengers!” they chant.

“Not an exact rhyme, but it works, I suppose,” Pierce comments idly. He turns away from the glass, shaking his head. “People can be so materialistic. They looked at the price tag attached to the Battle of New York and decided that it was too high. Of course, the rest of us know that if it weren’t for you, Sergeant, and the other Avengers, this planet would have been _decimated_. And I’d say our continued existence is worth a couple billion dollars, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Yeah, I’d say that.” A lot of people thanked you, even hugged you, after that battle. You still have the stuffed Bucky Bear that was sent to you in the mail by the kid of someone you’d saved.

The elevator descends below ground level, and the sounds of the protest disappear. “People like that are the reason I have you doing covert missions,” Pierce explains. “People who don’t understand the meaning of the ‘greater good.’”

“I don’t—” you start to say, but then you see the ships.

Pierce grins proudly.

* * *

Huge. Enormous. And, somehow, completely hidden beneath the surface of the nation’s capital. Uneasiness settles in your gut as you crane your neck back in order to get just one of the Helicarriers to fit into your vision. You are standing on the floor of the hanger with Pierce, who has just finished his explanation of Project Insight.

“You said… Stark was a part of this?” you ask eventually.

“Yes, he helped with the engines.”

Stark is nowhere near your favorite person, but he’s a good man, and you trust him. The fact that he’s attached to this project makes it slightly less alarming.

“You understand all the secrecy now, Sergeant?” Pierce asks. “Project Insight can neutralize hundreds of threats before they cause any harm. It will save millions of lives and give this country the freedom it deserves. But some people won’t see it that way.”

You’re not sure what does it. Maybe it’s standing under these metal behemoths feeling like an ant. Maybe it’s the derisive look that Romanoff gave you back on the ship and that just won’t get out of your head. But whatever it is, it sparks something in you.

“This doesn’t look like freedom, sir. This… this looks like fear.”

Pierce’s smile remains, but his eyes lose a bit of twinkle. He is not used to being disagreed with. “I can see why you would think that, Sergeant,” he says, voice kept decidedly casual. “But understand, this technology would have prevented 9/11, Columbine, the War in Afghanistan, even the Battle of New York. Think of all the lives that could have been saved. All that will be saved.

“I have put so much into this project: sleepless nights, early mornings, missed piano recitals and birthday parties. Because I believe that I have a duty to this world, a duty to make it a better place.” Pierce leans in. “What about you, Sergeant Barnes? Is that your duty, as well?”

You find yourself nodding.

* * *

The museum is crowded today, more field trips than usual. You tug your cap further down over your eyes, pull your sleeve over your metal fingers, and no one gives you a second glance.

You come here often—often enough that security is probably starting to get worried that you’re planning some sort of heist or terrorist attack—and you don’t know why. Well, actually, you do know why, but you don’t like the answer, so you pretend you don’t know.

The truth is, the quiet, unsettling truth of it all is… you’re starting to forget. You’re starting to forget, and it scares the shit out of you.

It doesn’t make any sense. It’s not like you’re actually ninety-seven years old; yet, the details fall out of your brain anyway. You served with the Howling Commandos for fifteen months, and the war was only two years ago for you. So why is it that, when you close your eyes and try to picture Morita’s face, you see nothing but blurs?

What was the hat that Dum-Dum always wore? A red beret—no, that was Falsworth, wasn’t it? And what was that dumb joke that Jones loved to make? Something about chickens—no, ducks, more like. Yes, that’s it, but _what was it_ —

Today, you spend ten minutes staring at the Howling Commandos mural, trying your best not to blink, almost as if you can burn their images into your retina if you stand there long enough. Falsworth, Dernier, Jones, Morita, Dugan. You haven’t forgotten their names yet, but you live in fear of the day you do.

When your eyes start watering from staring, you walk over to the beginning of the exhibit, this little yellow corner where your early years are chronicled. It only takes up a fraction of the room, while your WWII exploits are spread out over the rest in dramatic blue lighting. They got that wrong, you think. Yes, you were in the war, yes, you stopped Hydra, but what made up most of your life, what you remember best, are lazy Sunday afternoons with Steve on the roof of your apartment building and fights in back alleys, pulling Steve out of trouble and getting scolded by Mrs. Rogers after.

You haven’t been forgetting Steve much yet. You can still remember the way his bangs used to fall into his eyes, the feeling of a scrawny shoulder, skin and bones, underneath your hand. ~~But sometimes it takes you a minute, two minutes, to remember when his birthday was, and when that happens, you have to go into another room and take a lot of deep breaths.~~

It doesn’t help that Steve’s section in the exhibit is all too small. His life story is summed up in a three by four foot plaque, which ends with “It is unknown what happened to Rogers following Barnes’ enlistment. The prevailing theory is that he passed away in the small pneumonia outbreak that moved through Brooklyn the winter of 1943, and that his hospital records subsequently were lost in a fire.”

You’d tried unsuccessfully to get the museum curator to change that once.

“Sergeant Barnes, we all know that you freed yourself from the Hydra base, whereupon you heroically rescued the other 1,000 men imprisoned with you,” was the curator’s response.

“ _He_ saved me,” you’d insisted, waving your arms around. You were vaguely aware that you looked a bit manic. “The dumb punk enlisted, came over to Europe. I was in the Hydra base, being tortured, and he came and set me free. Set us all free.”

The curator had only laughed nervously. “Steven Rogers, in the army? He was ninety pounds with a list of medical ailments longer than my arm. Who would have taken him?”

And for a second, later that day, you believed her. Who would have taken him, indeed? You went over the events of that night in your mind. You’d been tortured for weeks, dazing in and out of consciousness, and then one day, you’d woken up to find Steve standing over you, looking nothing like himself. Who are you to say he was even there?

_no, no, no, no, no, n—_

* * *

Carter has trouble remembering, too. Maybe that’s why you visit her. Maybe it’s because you always did like her, deep down.

"Knowing that you helped found SHIELD is half the reason I stay. I know it must give you migraines, thinking about me sullying your precious operation."

You can envision a younger version of Carter pursing her lips and crossing her arms in response to you, but this one only sighs warmly. "Oh, James, you forget, it's been seventy years. For me, the grudges of the past faded away long ago."

You smile with one side of your mouth. That is better than you deserve.

"Besides," Carter continues, "SHIELD is hardly my operation anymore. It's been so long… I'm not sure what it's become." She shakes her head and looks at you. "What have they got you doing lately?"

"Same as always," you reply, waving a hand. "Just being Alexander Pierce's lapdog. Nothing new."

"What do you do for him?"

"Oh, you know I can't tell you, Peggy. It's just this and that. Whatever he tells me—"

Carter grabs your wrist with a quickness she should not still retain. "James, please, you must be more cautious. You cannot just take orders blindly. Alexander Pierce is a good man, but no man is infallible. Do not let him turn you into a weapon.”

You laugh. Loudly enough that the nurse peeks in. “I’m sure I have no idea what you're talking about, doll.”

Carter frowns, closing her eyes and sinking back into her pillow. She never liked it when you called her that.

Then, suddenly, her eyes flash open with a familiar confusion. “ _You_? You're here? But you died! I heard it—"

“Nope, I survived, Peggy. And now I'm back."

"Oh, God, James," she says, "I'm so sorry."

* * *

(Sometimes you wonder what would have happened if the dementia had held off for a few more years, if it had still been Carter in charge when they’d spotted the glint of your rifle under the ice.

She would have known, you think. She would have known that some things just shouldn’t be woken up.)

* * *

You’ve got the rest of the afternoon free, so you head to the VA and catch the ending of Sam’s last group session.

“Look who it is, the running man,” Sam drawls with a smile, and it catches you off guard. You can’t remember the last time someone looked so happy to see you.

“You hold a mean grudge, Wilson,” you say, clasping his hand.

“One of my many talents.” Sam bends down to arrange the pamphlets on one of the tables, looks away from you briefly. “You ever think about coming to one of these?”

Your pride flares, but you choke it down. “Doubt it’d help. I’m not your average soldier, if you haven’t noticed.”

“We all got the same problems,” Sam counters. “Guilt. Regret.”

There’s a tinge of something in Sam’s voice when he says those last two words, a familiar kind of sheen in his eye. You don’t want to pry, but you do. “You lose somebody?”

“My wingman, Riley. Flying a night mission. Standard PJ, rescue op, nothin’ we hadn't done a thousand times before, ’til an RPG knocked Riley's dumbass outta the sky. Nothin’ I could do. It's like I was up there just to watch.”

You close your eyes for a second or two. Yeah. Sounds about right.

“You?” Sam asks mildly.

“Yeah,” you say. “Er, no. Not a soldier. Someone who I left back home… who was mostly the only reason I even enlisted in the first place. After that, there wasn’t really much of a point.”

“But you kept fighting,” Sam says. “You still are.”

You shrug. “Yeah, well.”

“You ever think about getting out? Civilian life, maybe.”

You’ve considered it on occasion, but you wouldn’t even know where to start, even if Pierce let you go without a fight. What would you do with your days? Garden? Take up knitting?

“You happy now, back in the world?”

“Hey, the number of people giving me orders is down to about zero. So, hell, yeah.”

You chuckle and then sigh, running a hand through your long hair. “I don’t… I don’t know.”

“Well, think about it, alright?” Sam says, clapping a warm hand on your shoulder. He looks at you with knowing eyes. “The war is over, Barnes. Yours, anyway. No reason you have to fight in ours.”

* * *

The secretary tells you that Pierce will be back shortly and that you should wait in the seat right there next to Agent Romanoff. She also hands you a plastic cup filled with strawberry smoothie and a yellow bendy straw.

“Director Pierce told me to give that to you,” she says with a wide smile.

Strange, but you take the cup anyway and sip it lightly. Who are you to turn down a free smoothie?

You sit down beside Romanoff who doesn’t have a smoothie of her own. However, she doesn’t seem to care, just glares at the wall with something vaguely resembling murder in her eyes.

Her eyes flash on you briefly. “Barnes.”

“Romanoff,” you reply, just as dispassionately. “You know why Pierce called us here?”

“Another mission probably. What else?” She glances at you again. “I’m surprised he’s briefing us together. _Considering_.”

Your jaw clenches, and you sigh through your nose. “Look, about that. Our last mission. I talked to Pierce. I thought…” You’re not sure what to say. _I was just following order_ s sounds so pathetic, but it has the advantage of being true. _I didn’t trust you_ isn’t true, not when you think about it, not when you think about the countless times she’s saved your life, had your back. _I don’t know what I’m doing here, SHIELD is all I’ve got, it’s two-thousand-fucking-fourteen, and I don’t know—_

However, you don’t get a chance to finish because Romanoff whips her head around and stares at you intensely. “ _What?_ You thought _what_ , Barnes?” It sounds like real anger (and probably most of it is), until Romanoff flicks her eyes over to the secretary and back. You look over to the secretary who smiles at you again, all teeth, and waves.

You turn back to Romanoff, who has resumed staring at the wall. “Nothing,” you say, sinking back into your seat.

You sit in silence for another minute until the elevator dings, and Pierce comes out.

“Sergeant Barnes, Agent Romanoff,” he greets, as he walks briskly into the waiting room. You and Romanoff stand as he fishes his key card out of his pocket. “Thank you for meeting me on such short notice tonight. I apologize for my tardiness; it’s been very busy around here, as you know. Now, if you’d like to join me in my office, so I can brief you on an important mission—”

There’s a man in Pierce’s office. Or, at least, he looks like a man. It’s hard to tell because he’s wearing some bizarre American flag one-piece and helmet that would be more suited for a football game than a covert spy mission. Of course, maybe it does fit after all, seeing as the man has not tried whatsoever to be sneaky. The floor to ceiling window has been completely shattered, and most of the objects on Pierce’s desk have been knocked onto the ground.

The man is bent over in front of the computer, and he looks up at you with the most innocent, surprised, deer-caught-in-headlights look you’ve ever seen.

“Fellas,” he quips, acknowledging you with a nod. Then he grabs a flash drive out of the computer’s USB port and jumps out the window, swinging onto the side of the building.

You’re stunned for a moment, and then you bark out a laugh. _Fellas_ , you think bemusedly. _And that costume._

Pierce is the first one to come to his senses. “Agent Romanoff! Pursue that man!” he orders.

Oddly enough, Romanoff doesn’t budge. You turn to look at her, and her face is screwed up into a frown. “I—” she begins.

Pierce doesn’t let her finish. “Oh, for fu—Barnes! Follow him and get that flash drive!”

You follow orders promptly, crossing the room in a few quick strides and stepping through of the broken window onto the narrow ledge outside. You face the glass and start shuffling sideways, gripping the thin metal slits that separate the windows to keep yourself from falling. The man is heading towards the edge of the building, about fifty feet ahead of you already.

Aided by your super strength, you move quickly, but the man does, too. You speed up, your strides growing longer and longer—until you finally stumble. Cursing under your breath, you scrabble at the glass to catch yourself. Only now do you look down and realize that you are seventy stories up, and that it probably would have been smarter to go after the man from inside the building and break open the glass when you reached him. When did you start following orders so carelessly?

You look at your reflection in the glass and scowl. “Come on, just give up,” you shout to the man, loud enough to be heard over the wind. “Before we both fall to our deaths.”

You are surprised to see the man pause at this, as if he is actually considering it. But the moment passes, and he continues onto the side of the building and starts climbing up a ladder to the roof. You groan and keep going, scrambling up the ladder after him.

Reaching the top, you find the man sprinting toward the other side of the roof. “Hey, stop!” you shout rather uselessly, as you vault over the top of the ladder and start sprinting in the same direction. Though you’re not exactly sure where the man is going, seeing as there’s no parachute on his back, no helicopter hovering in the air. There’s the river below, but that’s got to be a hundred feet away, seventy-five at least. Someone didn’t think this plan through.

Once again, you are surprised to see the man actually stop short and spin around. Now that you’ve gotten a closer look, there’s something about his costume that you find familiar, this skin-tight, patriotic monstrosity, but you just can’t place it.

The man does nothing, just stares at you, eyes pained and bright. You reach for a knife, twirling it in your fingers, but you find yourself unable to do anything with it.

You and the man stand in this stalemate for one long moment, until Rumlow’s voice comes out of nowhere. “Drop the flash drive, and put your hands up,” he says from behind you. You can see his rifle emerge in your peripheral.

The man doesn’t take his eyes off you. Instead, he salutes.

“Sergeant,” he says gruffly. Then, he turns around, gets a running start, and leaps.

The river below is a far jump. You’d barely make it, and you’ve got the serum.

You run to the other side of the roof, peer over the edge. You watch as the red-white-and-blue disappears into the Potomac with a splash, and you shake your head. “Fuckin’ idiot,” you mutter.

* * *

Back in Pierce’s wrecked office, the cold wind blowing in through the broken window. You stand beside Romanoff and absentmindedly kick around some of the shattered glass on the floor. Rumlow sits on an armchair, cleaning his rifle with a rag, and Pierce stands by his desk, his hands behind his back, studying the Washington Monument in his regular stance, as if it is just another day, and there is still glass there.

There are plenty of other places to meet in this building, but Pierce hasn’t moved, and no one says anything.

You and the others wait as Pierce contemplates. At one point, the secretary enters, delicately stepping over the debris in her high heels, and hands Pierce a file.

“The report from the IT department, sir.”

“Thank you, Charlotte,” Pierce says with a smile, as if he isn’t even upset. She exits, and you all wait as Pierce takes a quick look at the file.

“As I feared,” he says eventually, turning around, “the intruder managed to obtain very classified information. The data will have been encrypted, of course, but a skilled hacker could decrypt it in a matter of three or four days. Less, if they have a mole in SHIELD, which is a possibility we must consider.” Pierce looks vaguely disappointed and not panicked as maybe you think he should be; he is unflappable, and for some reason, it bothers you more than it reassures you.

He turns to Romanoff and says, his voice sharp, “Agent Romanoff, why did you not pursue the trespasser as you were ordered?”

“Apologies, sir,” Romanoff replies smoothly. “I was not confident in my abilities to follow him.”

You begin to laugh at this blatant lie, but quickly stifle it with a cough. Romanoff can do anything you can do, only with two times the grace and three times the stealth.

Pierce stares discerningly at Romanoff, though he appears to be buying it. Romanoff’s face is very innocent.

“You seemed to recognize the man, Agent.” Then again, maybe he isn’t buying it. “Care to share what you know?”

“Not more than the average civilian,” Romanoff shrugs. “And I recognized the costume, not the man, though it could be the same man for all I know.”

“Elaborate,” Pierce says.

Romanoff shakes her head. “He’s an urban legend. They call him Captain America, for obvious reasons.” She turns to you. “You know, like that character that used to be in all those World War II posters—”

“I know,” you say sharply, as you finally manage to remember where you’ve seen that costume before. It’s the costume Steve was wearing when he came to rescue you, when he fell into the flames. The costume he wore during those USO tours that Carter showed you pictures of.

Romanoff quirks an eyebrow at you, but moves on. “He was first spotted at an anti-war protest in New York, 1991, when he restrained a police officer who was pepper spraying an old lady. He managed to escape arrest, and he and various imitators have been showing up at protests ever since. Always non-violent unless he witnesses police brutality. No one knows who he really is. Doesn’t give interviews, never takes off his helmet.”

Your mind races while Romanoff talks. A man in Steve’s uniform. What does that mean? Does it even mean anything? You think maybe you should be angry. Someone’s taking Steve’s legacy and making it his own, but then again, Steve always did like his protests. You always had to wade into them, find him, make sure he didn’t get to school late or get the shit kicked out of him.

Pierce looks back down at his file. “Yes, that seems to match up with what SHIELD has on him. Only recorded sightings of him are at anti-government protests.”

 _So what was he doing breaking into your office?_ you wonder. _The protests weren’t enough anymore?_

“The less people who know about this security breach, the better,” Pierce continues, “so Romanoff, Barnes, I’m putting you on this. Track down this ‘Captain America’ and retrieve that flash drive within the next two days.”

“What about the mission you were going to brief on us on, sir?” you ask.

Pierce waves his hand dismissively. “Forget that. Captain America is your mission, now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is gonna take me a while to finish because of school, but mark my words, I will finish it eventually. Concrit welcome, as always.


	4. The Winter Soldier: Captain America (Part 2)

“Where to?” you ask Romanoff.

You two are out on the street now, standing under an orange streetlamp and the dull gleam of the stars. You’ve changed into your civilian clothes, dark jeans and a leather jacket, while she sports a sweatshirt and some leggings.

Romanoff shrugs, not looking at you. “You take the lead on this one, Barnes. It’s all yours.”

Alright. Normally you wouldn’t have much of a problem with that except for the fact that you’ve got no idea where to start. Pierce’d had a dozen other things to deal with, so he’d basically kicked you out of his office and left you to fend for yourself. Captain America has no address, no name, no identity. And the fact that he’d entered the Triskelion through the window means you don’t even have a vehicle to trace.

“Well, you got any suggestions?” you ask.

“Nope,” Romanoff responds promptly, the slightest hint of cheer in her voice.

You bristle in annoyance. “Why are you lying? Why did you lie to Pierce?”

Romanoff glances distastefully at you from over her shoulder, a look that can only mean _and why would I tell you, of all people?_

“Are you going to be any help to me over these next few days?”

She doesn’t even bother to respond to that one.

“Alright, fine.” You sigh and look down at the file again, picking out a random detail. “It says here Captain America likes protests for veterans’ rights. I’ve got a friend at the VA, maybe he’ll know something.” It’s a long shot, but it’s all you’ve got.

Romanoff’s composure falters for a fraction of a second, which she covers up with a smirk. “You have a friend?” she asks dryly.

* * *

“Well, hello there,” Sam croons when the group session ends and you enter the auditorium with Romanoff. He extends a hand. “Sam Wilson.”

Romanoff shakes his hand and smiles, genuine or pandering, you’re not sure and never are. “Natalie Rushman.”

“Very nice meeting you, Natalie,” Sam says, and you chuckle. He turns to you, pats your back. “And Barnes! Always good to see you, man. You came here for group? Unfortunately you just missed the last one of the night.”

“No. Actually… we’re here for business. SHIELD business.”

Sam’s face falls, his eyes darkening, and he laughs humorlessly. “SHIELD? And what’s that got to do with little old me?”

“You heard of Captain America?” you ask.

“The protestor?” Sam shrugs. “Yeah, hasn’t everybody? They write about him in the papers sometimes.”

You pause and turn to Romanoff, see if maybe she’ll decide to participate. She merely stares at the wall disinterestedly, and you give it up.

“He broke into SHIELD headquarters a couple of hours ago and stole some sensitive information. We’ve been assigned to track him down, and we figured that you might have seen him around the VA since he’s so passionate about veterans’ issues.”

Sam furrows his eyebrows and thinks for a moment. “Nope, never seen the guy.”

“You sure?” you ask, determined. This is your only lead.

“The dude dresses up in a full-body star-spangled suit,” Sam laughs. “I think I’d know if I saw Captain America around here—”

“Did you say Captain America?”

You turn around to see an old man with a cane and bent glasses. He’s holding a plate of cookies in his hand.

“Yeah?” you say.

“Well, I saw Captain America here, just the other day!” the old man says.

Sam sighs. “Are you sure you weren’t just seeing things again, Ronald?” he asks gently. “I mean, _I_ certainly didn’t notice a _moron_ running around in spandex—”

“Oh, he wasn’t in his uniform,” Ronald says.

“Then how’d you know it was him?” you ask.

“Well, he told me. And he showed me the uniform in his backpack. It was the real one, I could tell.” You can sense Romanoff tensing behind you. “He was a nice fella. Big, tall, blond. Knew an awful lot about World War II for a boy his age.”

“You got any idea where he went after you saw him?” you ask.

“I can do you one better! He told me that I could come talk to him anytime. Then he gave me his address.”

Out of the corner of your eye, you can see Sam put his hand over his face. The man looks tired.

“Why are you looking for Captain America?” the old man asks, as he hands over the address. “You a reporter or something?”

“Not exactly,” you say.

* * *

After reviewing the sparse security footage for the VA and finding nothing, you and Romanoff take a cab to Captain America’s address. Sam had asked if he could come with you, curious to see the famous Captain America, but you’d had to say no, in case it was dangerous.

You and Romanoff exit the cab to find yourself in front of a very regular-looking house in the Arlington suburbs. The neighborhood is very quiet at this time of night, and the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.

“Nice place,” Romanoff comments idly. She looks at you. “What?”

“I think they know we’re—”

The moment that the departing taxi turns onto another street, you hear a rustle behind you, and you duck just in time to avoid taking a fist to the face.

“Natasha!” you shout, but your vision is quickly obscured by a dozen masked people, dressed in black, all coming for you. No time to pull out a weapon, you lash out with a frenzy of fists. At least you don’t have to aim when fighting so many.

You pick up a man by the neck with your metal arm, throw him back over your head, and you manage to catch a glimpse of Romanoff. She’s being held down by another masked man, but he doesn’t seem to be hurting her, only whispering something in her ear.

You punch someone solidly in the throat, someone else gets you good in the gut, and then it’s all over, the masked people gone as quickly as they’d shown up.

You find Romanoff sitting on the ground, her expression inscrutable.

“Are you okay?” you ask, reaching your arm toward her.

She slaps your hand away. “I’m fine,” she says, not looking you in the eye.

* * *

You quickly search the house, only to find that they’d cleared everything out, and then head back to one of Romanoff’s apartments to regroup. You’d offered your place, which was closer, but she’d refused steadfastly.

At Romanoff’s place, you collapse bodily onto the couch, your feet hanging over the armrest, and Romanoff unceremoniously lobs an icepack at your head.

“My aching body thanks you,” you say, as she disappears into the bedroom and you hear the shower start up. Still lying down, you grab Romanoff’s laptop and make an attempt to find out the owner of the house you’d just gotten beaten up at, only it’s a halfhearted attempt because it’s been a long day, and you still haven’t exactly gotten the hang of this whole “Internet” thing, despite your claims otherwise.

Eventually you doze off, the icepack sitting on a particularly bad bruise on your rib. When you wake up, it’s late, you’re still by yourself, and Romanoff still hasn’t left her room. Normally you wouldn’t mind Romanoff’s poor hosting etiquette and sleeping the whole night on this lumpy couch, but you do have some very sensitive information to recover.

You walk over to her bedroom door and knock. She’s not asleep, you can tell. “Natasha? Can I come in?” She doesn’t respond, and you gently push open the door.

The bedroom is sparse, which isn’t surprising, considering that it’s one of her many safe houses. Yet, there are still little touches of _Natasha_ that you can spot: the book of crossword puzzles by the lamp, the package of trail mix on the desk. Natasha herself is sitting on the carpet, surrounded by various files, her hair still damp. She has not looked up.

“Uh, Natasha? Can I come in?” you try again.

She flicks her eyes up at you in annoyance. “What are you, a vampire? This isn’t even the front door.”

“Uh…”

“You have no excuse for not getting that reference. Dracula came out way before you were born.” She sighs. “Yes, you can come in.”

You step lightly and sit in the chair by the desk. You turn it to face her, then lean down, your arms on your knees. “Whatcha reading?” you ask casually.

“SHIELD files.” Her frown deepens. “They’re spotless,” she mutters.

“What’re you looking for?” you ask. And when she doesn’t respond, you wring your hands and ask, “What did that man tell you back in Arlington?”

She gives you the same look as before. The same darkly amused look that says there’s no way in Hell she trusts you with that information.

You open your mouth, then close it. What is there to say? Natasha returns to her files, and you fall silent.

People used to trust you, you think. You used to smile easy and talk the dames into coming out with you. You used to convince Mrs. Rogers to go on to work, to leave the feverish Steve at home with you because you could take care of him, just fine. You must have lost that part of yourself, some time ago. Or maybe you still have it, buried deep, reaching out—

“SHIELD is building superweapons,” you blurt out, a weight you’d forgotten you were carrying. “It’s called Project Insight. These giant ships that could kill anyone on the planet in seconds.”

She stares at you, mouth tight. “I know.”

“The President of the United States signed off on it,” you say. The words are like some kind of cold comfort. “The World Security Council signed off on it. Unanimously.”

Natasha grits her teeth. “I _know_.”

“Then, _what_ , Natasha? What do you want—”

“What I want,” she says, her lips twitching with a hint of amusement, “is for you to drop your pants. And lift up your shirt.”

You raise an eyebrow, but you comply, standing up and undoing your belt while Natasha reaches for a remote, and _Let’s Get It On_ by Marvin Gaye starts coming out of the speakers by the wall. You raise your shirt above your pecs, and Natasha makes a spinning motion with her finger. You turn around to show her your back.

“You’re not gonna make me squat and cough, are ya?”

“You’re clean,” Natasha says. “Put your pants back on,” she adds, a second later.

Once you’ve redressed and sat down again, you look at Natasha who is leaning her head back against her bed, breathing deeply.

“You really thought I was wearing a wire?”

She digs the heels of her palms into her eye sockets. “I don’t know _what_ to think.”

You fall silent, waiting for Natasha to continue. Eventually, she opens her eyes again, leans toward you, and, voice low, says, “Ever since Fury resigned as director, he and Hill have been off the grid. I’ve had no way to contact them.” There are dark circles under her eyes, you notice. You hadn’t noticed them before. “Clint got assigned some undercover work in Abu Dhabi thirteen months ago. I haven’t heard from him since. Not even on our private line.” She breathes out deeply. “There’s no one. No one, but…”

Natasha pulls up the bottom of her tank top, exposing a faint scar on her hip. “I got this when my first mission for the Red Room went wrong. I was twelve.” You shudder, but you don’t interrupt. “I was tasked with infiltrating some underground compound, messed up, got myself shot, started bleeding out. I would have died. Then Captain America saved my life.”

“…What?”

She chuckles humorlessly. “I know, it sounds unbelievable. But it was him. The same guy who broke into Pierce’s office; I could tell from the eyes. That same uniform, only it was dirtier, ripped in places. He had some broken shackles around his ankles, looked like he’d just escaped from somewhere. He picked me up and told me I was gonna be fine. Next thing I know, I’m waking up in the hospital.”

“That’s why you haven’t been helping me find him,” you realize.

Natasha shrugs. “I owe him a debt.”

“So you’re on his side now?”

“No,” she answers, frowning. Then, voice lowered and barely audible over the music, she says, “But I’m not on Pierce’s either.”

“You’re going to have to choose a side eventually, Natasha,” you say, your tone gentle.

She looks at you sharply. “Is that what you’ve done?”

You don’t think you ever chose, you just were. SHIELD is Fury is Carter is Steve is Pierce is the Avengers is the great U.S. of A. What else is there? Civilian life and Captain America? Maybe Project Insight has been giving you a few doubts, but, really, this is it. This is all there’s ever been.

Natasha looks away. “I don’t know if I can do it again.”

“What? Choose a side?”

She shakes her head. “Be wrong.”

A pang of sympathy blooms in your chest. Even if the work you’ve done with SHIELD isn’t up to par, you’ve still got the elimination of Hydra under your belt. At least you know you’ve done one thing right in your life. For Natasha, it’d just mean that she went from one corrupt regime to another. That maybe her entire existence has just been one dark stain on history.

“You saved New York from aliens,” you offer. “Actually, the entire world, probably. No arguing against that.”

“Yeah, well,” she says, but the corner of her lip twitches into a smile.

You smile back, and then your phone beeps. You’ve got a new message, and it’s also five in the morning. You’re not sure where the time went. You probably should have been looking for Captain America.

“It’s Pierce,” you say, and Natasha’s face hardens. “He wants an update in his office at seven.”

“You can handle that on your own, can’t you?” Natasha asks. “I’ve got some things to take care of.”

You begin to say that if she doesn’t show up, Pierce will trust her even less, but it occurs to you that she probably doesn’t care.

* * *

Pierce’s office has been completely repaired, his windows replaced and his things cleaned up. The man works fast.

“Good morning, Sergeant Barnes,” Pierce says. “Please, sit down. Are you thirsty? Have a glass of milk. Drink up; it’s good for you.

“Status report?” Pierce asks, as you down half the glass.

“Sir. We tracked Captain America to an address in Arlington, but before we could enter the house, we were attacked. The assailants then escaped and we searched the house but found nothing.”

Pierce frowns. “And where is Agent Romanoff this fine morning?”

 _Having an existential crisis_ , you think, but no. You’ll lie for her. She trusted you, and that’s a precious thing.

“Following up on some leads,” you say smoothly. “We agreed it would be more efficient if only I updated you.”

Nodding curtly, Pierce says, “Very well. Keep up the good work.”

You nod, and Pierce turns away to gaze out the window. He hasn’t dismissed you, and you stand there in silence. You consider just leaving, but. But.

“Sir?” you say, after a minute.

“You know, Sergeant,” Pierce replies, “you and I aren’t so different. I fought in Vietnam; were you aware?” There’s a odd slant to his voice, and he no longer seems worried, but excited.

“Yes, sir.”

“So I am sure that you will agree with me when I say that war is… Hell.”

You were in a war, the details of which have been recently fading from your mind, but yes, it was Hell. You remember a lot of intense heat, explosions, dead bodies. Hell sounds about right.

“I saw so many horrifying things overseas. I saw soldiers who were ripped apart by exploding mines and then had to be put out of their misery. I saw the same thing happen to Vietnamese children. _Children_. It was in Vietnam where I realized my purpose in life.” Pierce turns around to look at you, eyes glowing. “War is chaos and destruction, and Project Insight will put an end to all that, an end to the fight. Project Insight will bring good order. I look forward to it.”

“As do I, sir.”

Pierce nods. “Dismissed.”

* * *

You return to Natasha’s safe house to find it empty. Not surprisingly, Natasha doesn’t answer when you call her either.

You stop by the VA, only to be told by the secretary that Sam was taking a few days off and wouldn’t be in. The next couple of hours you spend scouring the city, searching for leads, for anything, but you find nothing.

And so, with no leads, no partner, and an impossible mission, you find yourself back at the Smithsonian. You stare at the Howling Commandos mural for a few minutes, then leave. There wasn’t much else for you to do there.

The day passes uneventfully, and you return to your apartment and climb into bed.

* * *

“Barnes. Barnes. _James_.”

You jerk awake and Natasha is perched on top of you, her determined face inches from yours, her hands and knees pinning down your limbs. There’s music playing from somewhere in your apartment, one of your old records.

“The hell, Natasha?” you mumble, still dazed.

“You sleep like a fucking log, you know that?” Natasha says, instead. Her face is right there in front of you, but she looks at your forehead and not your eyes.

You consider her expression, the bodysuit she’s wearing, the time of night, the music to disrupt any bugs, and you put it all together.

“You’re deserting,” you say.

“ _No_ ,” she snaps, glaring into your eyes. “Deserting is for soldiers. I am not a soldier.”

Odd, you’d always thought of her as one in the back of your mind. “Then what are you?”

“I’m a person,” she says, as if it’s obvious, “just like everyone else. Fighting for the greater good. And I’m not so sure Pierce is interested in the greater good. So I’m leaving.”

You shake your head. “You’re wrong,” you say calmly. “You should listen to him talk—”

“Newsflash, James,” Natasha replies, breathing angrily through her nose, “people can lie. Like Pierce. _Especially_ Pierce. Look at Project Insight, and tell me, _tell me_ , that’s what the government should be doing.”

“I—”

“Come with me,” Natasha urges.

“What’re you gonna to do?”

“I’m going to find Nick.”

“And then what?” you ask, raising an eyebrow.

Her smile is one of grim satisfaction. “I haven’t gotten that far yet.”

But Pierce isn’t lying, as far as you can tell. He’ so… earnest, always has been. In fact, you could say he’s one of the best people you’ve ever met. He’s always talking about world peace, about doing what’s right. Under his command, you’ve saved hostages, stopped terrorist attacks, prevented assassinations.

Natasha frowns as she sees the doubt evident in your features, and she appears to make a decision. “You wanted to know what that man told me in Arlington.” She lowers her mouth to your ear, and she whispers, “He said, ‘SHIELD is Hydra.’”

“ _No_.” You push her body off yours, eyes wide and forgetting to be gentle. “No, no, no. I burned those fuckers down seventy years ago.”

Natasha grimaces. “I know, James. I know. I’m sorry.”

Anger flares, hot in your chest. How dare she— _how dare she_ —after you gave the war everything you had, after you died, putting that plane into the water while you were still in it—

“Get out. Get the fuck out,” you shout with all the venom you can muster.

Natasha gives you a pitying look, which is utter bullshit, which should be the other way around, should be you pitying her, and then ducks out the window as silently as she had entered.

* * *

You have to fight through an anti-SHIELD protest on the bridge the next morning on your way to the Triskelion. You accidentally bump into a man carrying a picket sign, and he turns to you, glaring, about to cuss you out until he recognizes you under your baseball cap.

He laughs awkwardly, puts his hands up in a non-threatening position. “It’s nothing personal, you know. You’re just the tool, and it’s the higher-ups we’re concerned with, not you. We want more accountability, more transparency, all that jazz.“

The guy looks like he’s about to piss his pants; you must have a pretty dark look on your face. “Whatever,” you say, continuing on your way.

Pierce, as usual, is staring out the window when you enter his office and sit down. From this floor, you can catch a glimpse of the protest going on in the distance. This is a big one, larger than the little monthly protests that happen at the Triskelion.

“It’s strange,” Pierce says after a moment, “how easy it is for people to forget who the bad guys really are. How easy it is to forget all the good we’ve done.” He turns around to face you. “Status report.”

“Agent Romanoff has… quit SHIELD.”

“As I feared,” Pierce responds, surprisingly unfazed. “I always thought Fury and Agent Barton were too quick to trust her. I was never convinced she had truly left behind her Soviet origins.”

That’s not why she left, you consider saying, but what do you know? After all people lie; Natasha herself said so. What is more likely: that SHIELD is evil or that an agent who has already defected once has merely defected again?

“How do you know this?” Pierce asks.

“She told me herself, then asked me to join her.”

Pierce smiles slowly and with teeth. “I assume you said no, Sergeant. Seeing as you are standing here.”

“Yes.”

He walks over to the fridge and returns with a glass of milk, sliding it across the desk to you. “Have some milk,” he says. At this point, it no longer seems strange to you, and you accept the beverage readily.

Before Pierce can continue speaking, the phone rings and he picks it up. You drink the milk as you wait for the call to finish.

Pierce hangs up the phone, and his eyes are bright. “Captain America has been spotted at the protest. Get Agent Rumlow and go retrieve him.”

“Yes, sir.” You stand up, and it hits you. A wave of nausea rolls through your abdomen, and you grab the back of the chair for support. Your mind, for one long moment, is terrifyingly blank. There’s nothing in your head, just white, hot _absence_ , and you literally cannot put a single thought together. And then it passes. _My name is James Buchanan Barnes,_ you think to yourself, and it grounds you. _I work for SHIELD. My orders are to retrieve Captain America._

“Are you okay?” Pierce asks.

You take a breath, and your vision clears. “Yeah, I’m fine,” you say.

Pierce grins. “Good. Now, go get ‘em, soldier.”

* * *

The protesters give you a wide berth when you show up decked out in full kevlar and a dozen assorted knives and guns. Rumlow stands on your left as you and your men scan the crowd.

“Alright,” shouts Rumlow, “spread out and—”

“No," you say and point at a man wearing a red, white, and blue uniform down the road, “there.” He’s quite visible seeing as he’s at the front of the crowd. You snort humorlessly; the asshole’s a fugitive, and he’s actually _leading_ the protest.

As you head over, Captain America meets your eyes, and his eyes widen in complete and utter panic. He turns away to flee, but it’s a pretty short chase. In no time at all, you’re straddling him and ripping his helmet off. “Captain America, you’re under arrest—”

“Please, no, please,” screams Captain America who turns out to be a dark-haired kid no older than eighteen. “There’s gotta be some kind of mistake. I bought this costume at Party City yesterday!” Well, now that you think about it, the boy’s body does feel pretty scrawny underneath you. This can’t be him. You look up at Rumlow, who shrugs.

“Well, let’s take him in anyway. He might know something.”

The kid’s crying now, tears darkening the sidewalk. “Please! You—”

“Let him go,” says a familiar voice. You look up to see another Captain America standing fifty feet away. “It’s me you’re looking for.”

This is the real one, you can tell. Same height, same eyes. You turn to Rumlow. “It’s him.”

Rumlow aims his pistol. “Put your hands up, and—”

A man with wings—bird?—comes crashing into Rumlow from the air, and Captain America takes off, sprinting away from the crowd into the less populated streets. You don’t follow, just pull your rifle off your back, breathe, and aim carefully. It’s an easy shot; Captain America isn’t even taking evasive action, just running straight away. You decide for an abdomen shot, to take him alive, when a group of civilians walks in front of your scope. You jerk your finger off the trigger and lower the rifle, scowling. Why couldn’t this ever be easy?

You glance to your right at Rumlow and the rest of your men, still fighting the man with wings and several other assailants. You catch a glimpse of red hair in the midst of the brawl, but then again, perhaps you imagined it.

_Retrieve._

You sprint off after Captain America alone, expecting to quickly catch up to him. After all, he is only human. But no, the man is fucking fast, and you struggle to keep up. You follow him down streets, around corners, and as you do, you can feel your focus sharpening, your vision narrowing, so that the fleeing man is the only thing you can see, the only thing you can think about.

_Retrieve._

Nothing in your mind but the order.

About fifty feet behind the man, your radio crackles to life. “Sergeant Barnes, this is Pierce. I authorize you to use any force necessary in pursuit of Captain America. Civilian casualties are acceptable.”

You immediately take out a grenade, pull the pin and throw it. The explosion sends a parked car hurtling at Captain America, and in the time it takes him to dodge, you quickly catch up to him, grabbing his throat with your metal hand.

“Hnrgh,” he gurgles, staring at you with something like fear—but not quite—in his eyes. You slam him against another car, but he wriggles out of your grip with a kick to your ribs.

“Look, look,” he says quickly, before you can throw a punch in retaliation. “I don’t want to fight. I really, _really_ don’t want to fight you.”

That’s the usual reaction people have when they see your arm in action. “So you’re gonna come quietly, pal?”

“Er, no.”

_Retrieve._

You pull out one of your knives and aim for the man’s stomach. He manages to grab your wrist, and he bashes your hand against a lamppost until it falls from your fingers.

“Please, um, wait,” the man tries again. Then, more to himself than you he mutters, “Shit, this wasn’t the plan.”

You unleash a fury of punches on him. He defends himself easily, and counters by head-butting you to the ground. As you push yourself up again, the man looks nervously behind himself as several black, unmarked vans pull up. Your men have caught up to you.

_Retrieve._

You launch yourself at Captain America, pinning him to the wall behind him.

"Bucky!" Captain America says, and your grip loosens. No one calls you Bucky anymore… but they used to, you think, once upon a time.

Captain America yanks off his helmet, lets it drop to the ground.

"Bucky,” he says, exhaling the name like a sigh. "It's me, Steve.”

"Who the hell is Steve?" you say.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will finish this soon hopefully! In the meantime, leave me a comment and let me know what you think!


	5. The Winter Soldier: Captain America (Part 3)

“Nice job,” Rumlow remarks casually in the van, one hand on the steering wheel. “Pierce’ll be pleased.”

You do not respond. Instead, you just watch the city pass by in the window and think about that man—Steve, he said his name was?— and about the way his face just… fell apart when you’d slapped the cuffs on him.

He looked really sad.

* * *

“He _escaped_? How the fuck did you let that happen—never mind. Send patrols out and find him.”

You are seated in Pierce's office. Pierce walks over and places a glass of milk in front of you, his expression calm. “Want some milk?”

“Not really.”

Pierce's face furrows for a moment, then relaxes. "Oh, sorry. _Drink_ some milk, Sergeant.”

You reach forward and take a sip.

"If you haven't noticed already," Pierce says, "there's something in the milk."

Pouring himself a glass of water, Pierce smiles to himself. "Courtesy of our mutual friend Dr. Zola," he continues. "He did a good job; it's a handy chemical, hard to detect. Odorless, tasteless. One problem, though: it's white. Hence, the milk. I just wanted to explain myself, in case you thought I was some sort of dairy fiend, ha." Pierce pauses as if waiting for a response.

You do not respond.

"Huh," he says, indifferent, "the sacrifices you make, I guess." He goes to sit down, and your eyes follow his movements. "Well, anyway. The chemical in your milk is a poison that targets the parts of the your brain where your long-term memories are stored: your hippocampus, entorhinal cortex, and perirhinal cortex.

"Don't worry, your short-term memories are stored somewhere else. As are your implicit memories: your memories of how to use objects or move your body. Therefore, you'll retain all your military training and any orders I give you. You just don't remember your first pet or what your mother looked like.

"Don't worry about that either. Thanks to our mutual friend, once again, your body regenerates many times faster than a regular human body does. Therefore, any damage to your long-term memory will most likely heal if we stop administering the poison. So, actually, I should be the one worrying. Only, I've got more than enough milk, ha."

He pauses. You do not respond.

"Sorry," he says. "Habit. Anyway, you may be wondering where the obedience comes from. Which other parts of the brain is the poison attacking? None, actually. This poison was something we used to deal with those who knew too much about our organization but were too important to eliminate. The poison was not for creating weapons, not until now. Not until we found the right mind. Yours.

"The truth is, Sergeant Barnes, you were a weapon long before I had anything to do with you. All we had to do was erase your memory and then simply point and shoot. Oh, don't take offense, this doesn't say anything bad about you. A weapon is only as good or as bad as the hands holding it. And you, Sergeant, are in some very good hands now."

He leans forward. "I'm curious. Do you have any thoughts about what I just—Sorry. _Tell_ me your thoughts about what I just said."

You do not have many thoughts at the moment. And the thoughts you do have are swirling around, groundless, distorted. But you have orders. So you pull on one thread and say,

"The man I was chasing.” The words come out, and it solidifies. Yes, yes. "I knew him."

"Yes, you did," Pierce says, expression disappointed and impatient. "I sent you to apprehend him earlier this week."

You keep pulling. "No, I knew him. From—from—"

He frowns. "Drink the rest of that milk. Then you won't."

You drink the milk.

* * *

You are sitting in some random office in the back of the Triskelion.

“Wait here,” an agent tells you. “You’ll get new orders tomorrow morning.”

You wait. Time passes. The sun falls in the sky. And then—

A man with wings, carrying another man, lands on the balcony outside. You consider taking action, but those aren’t the orders.

“The camera feeds are looped,” the winged man tells the other man. “You got ten minutes, max.” The other man nods, then slides open the balcony door, staring warily at you. You do nothing.

 _Wait_.

“… Barnes?”

You stare back at the man. He’s black, wearing an eye-patch over his left eye and a long black trench coat that billows out behind him. “And who the hell are you?”

The man’s lips tighten. “It’s me, Fury.” When no recognition crosses your face, he tries again. “Nick? Cranky, manipulative bastard who used to order you around?”

You can only remember one person who orders you around, and that’s Pierce. He’s the opposite of cranky. He makes rousing speeches about freedom and the greater good, so well-worded that you always find yourself nodding along.

You shake your head.

“Damn, Rogers wasn’t lying,” Fury mutters. “Look,” he says, “you used to know me. But now all you know is Pierce, and you got nothing to compare him to. He is _not_ a good man. Don’t get fooled by all the Nobel Peace Prize bullshit; I know I was. But he’s Hydra. And Project Insight is nothing but mass genocide. When Pierce gets those helicarriers into the air, they are going to take out more than a third of the world’s population.” Fury shows you his phone, which displays a map of the eastern U.S. covered in small red x’s.

_Wait. New orders in the morning._

You raise a skeptical eyebrow.

“I know, I know,” Fury says. “Not good evidence. I easily could have faked this. But that’s okay. I didn’t come here to convince you. Just to plant the seed.”

The man on the balcony taps the glass. “Five minutes,” he says.

Fury nods. “You recognize him either?” he asks you.

You shake your head, and Fury breathes out through his nose.

“I’m sorry, Barnes,” he says, staring at you, face set. “I could’ve prevented this, you know. I could have taken you with me when I left SHIELD.

“And I didn’t. I wasn’t sure about SHIELD at the time; I only had my suspicions. Also, I had no idea that Pierce was so batshit evil that he was going to brainwash you into a mindless zombie. But also because I believed that you were a good man. And that, when it was time, when I needed your help, you would come.”

Fury takes a hesitant step towards you. You don’t move.

“I still believe that. I believe that deep down there, somewhere in your empty skull, you know what’s right. You’re our ace in the hole, Barnes. I’m counting on you.”

You do know what’s right. SHIELD and Pierce and Project Insight, that’s what’s right… right?

“Okay, that’s a lie,” Fury says, wincing. “I’m not counting on you because that’d be a dumb fucking move. Our plan can succeed without you. But it’d be a lot easier with you on our side.”

“Fury, we gotta go,” the man on the balcony says.

“Okay.” Fury walks closer to you and reaches over, putting a firm hand on your shoulder. You stare at it. “Remember what I told you, alright, son?” Then he walks back onto the balcony and he and the other man are off, disappearing into the cloud cover.

Rumlow and some other agents burst into the room. “Barnes!” Rumlow says sharply. “Why didn’t you detain them?”

Your eyebrows furrow. “I was supposed to?”

Frustrated, Rumlow groans. He turns to the agents behind him. “Get a ‘copter in pursuit,” he growls. “And someone get Barnes some more milk.”

* * *

You are sitting in some random office in the back of the Triskelion. Several men stand behind Pierce who is kneeling in front of you. He is holding up photos in front of your face. He is saying something.

“—hostiles are going to try to interfere with out plans. Your mission is to ensure that Project Insight succeeds, at all costs. These are some of the hostiles you will need to eliminate—”

You glance at the photos. One man has wings, the other has an eye patch and a sour expression. There’s a woman with fire-red hair and a man wearing a stars-and-stripes themed bodysuit. He looks like an asshole.

“—this is it. America is about to enter a better and brighter age. But before that happens, we need to move past the old age. Some people aren’t going to be too happy about that, but it’s for the greater good. We need your help. You are going to be the bullet that brings America forward.

“Serve your country, Sergeant. Serve your people. Protect Project Insight.” Pierce pauses and peers into your eyes, searching. “Is that clear?”

You stare at the photos, committing them to memory. They slot into your mind easily, as if they’d been there before.

Pierce frowns. “I said, is that clear, Sergeant?”

You stare at the photo of the asshole. There’s something about him that pisses you off. In the photo, he’s fleeing from a bunch of men with guns, and he’s forgotten to protect his left flank. A well-aimed bullet could easily puncture his abdomen—

“Sergeant!” Pierce barks, as he rears back and slaps you. The impact sends your face backwards, and your cheek stings. Pierce leans closer to you. “Is that clear?”

You stare back at him placidly. “Crystal,” you say, as the orders begin to take hold in your empty brain.

_Eliminate hostiles. Protect Project Insight. Serve your country._

Pierce smiles, satisfied, and he begins to stand up. “Excellent.”

“Sir,” Rumlow interjects. “He doesn’t seem… focused. Are you sure he is ready—”

“Do you doubt me?” Pierce asks. His eyebrow is raised, and he seems almost amused.

Rumlow opens and closes his mouth several times, unsure how to phrase it. “No, sir, I just…”

Pierce hands you a small pistol. “Sergeant, eliminate Agent Rumlow.”

_Eliminate._

Rumlow tries to duck, but you’re too quick; you’ve done this many times before. Before he can react, you pull the trigger with a smooth motion, and there’s a loud bang. Only, no bullet leaves the gun.

Quickly composing himself, Rumlow mutters, unamused, “You’ve made your point, sir.”

You try to return the gun to Pierce, but he pushes it back into your hand. “Keep it,” he says, voice almost friendly. “The rest aren’t blanks. Now—”

He is interrupted when the intercom crackles to life. “SHIELD, listen up,” a man says. His voice has an air of authority and instantly catches your attention. Pierce scowls, eyes dark. “This is Colonel Nicholas Fury.”

“You!” Pierce yells at a group of agents behind him. “Find him!”

“I used to be your boss, and I was sacked. I’m sure you all remember me as being a hardass, but that’s not why they got rid of me. They got rid of me because I disobeyed orders. And they decided there wasn’t space for people who don’t follow orders in SHIELD.

“Who’s ‘they,’ you’re wondering? Well, here’s the goddamned truth: ‘they’ is HYDRA. I know. I didn’t want to believe it either. But, yes, SHIELD has been taken over by HYDRA, has been for quite some time. Alexander Pierce is their leader. The STRIKE and Insight crew are HYDRA, too. We don't know how many more others, but we know they're in the building. They could be standing right next to you.

“Don’t believe me? I want you to think back. Think back to all the SHIELD agents who tried to do the right thing and got fired for their troubles. Or maybe they got sent to disciplinary action and came back seeming different somehow. Or maybe they got ‘promoted,’ and you never saw them again. Think back to what happens to people who don’t follow orders at SHIELD.

“HYDRA wants absolute control, and they almost have it. And if you launch those helicarriers today, we’re all fucked. HYDRA will be able to kill anyone that stands in their way, unless we do something. Me and my friends, we’re gonna do everything we can to stop that launch, but we’re gonna have a helluva time trying to do it alone.

“We’re asking for a lot, but we need your help. This country needs your help. Now, let’s fuck up some Nazis.”

The intercom cuts off, plunging the small room into silence. Everybody is staring at Pierce, who, for just one, remarkable moment, looks genuinely shocked.

You laugh.

* * *

Pierce sends you off with Rumlow down to the control room, which is overrun by chaos.

_Eliminate hostiles. Protect Project Insight. Serve your country._

Rumlow unloads his pistol into the ceiling, quieting the room, and walks over to a young man who is sitting in front of a computer and sweating profusely. You watch as Rumlow touches his pistol to the back of the man’s head.

“Preempt the launch sequence. Send those ships up now.”

Absolute fear gleams in the man’s eyes, and his fingers twitch. “I…”

“Is there a problem?” Rumlow jams the pistol further into the man’s skull. _“Is there a problem?”_

“Sorry, sir,” the man stammers. And he’s a man, but look at him, he’s just a kid, and out of nowhere you feel a pang of sympathy for him. He’s got a gun to his head, he looks like he’s gonna shit himself, there’s no way he’s trained for this, he’s just a desk jockey, not a field operative, he’s gotta do what Rumlow says, how can he not—

“I’m not gonna launch those ships,” he chokes out, and you’re taken aback. “Fury’s orders.”

Rumlow looks annoyed. He cocks his gun unnecessarily, causing the kid to tremble some more. “Move away from your station.”

A blonde woman pulls out her own gun, and the rest of the room follows suit. “Like he said,” she declares, “Fury’s orders.”

“You picked the wrong side, Agent,” Rumlow growls, jaw tensing.

“Depends on where you’re standing.” the woman replies fiercely.

Rumlow drops his gun, then slices the woman with a knife a second later, and the control room erupts into chaos once again. You dodge a couple bullets, deflect a couple with your arm, then duck around the corner into the hallway and take out the people aiming at you. You can hear the distant rumble of the helicarrier gates opening.

In the fray, you spot the kid cowering under one of the desks, his head under his arms. It’d be an easy shot from where you’re standing. But he’s not a threat. And he’s just a kid, and he wasn’t half bad.

There’s a splash of red in your peripheral, and you turn to see a woman standing a couple feet away. You recognize her easily: her photo had been among the ones Pierce had showed to you and referred to as “hostiles.” You shift into your fighting stance, fists up, and she flashes you a lively smile.

“Hey sailor,” she says. “I heard you and Fury had a little chat.”

You stare at her warily. “Lady, I got no idea what you’re talking about.”

“That’s okay,” she says, and her eyes are kind. “I believe in you, James.”

Then she’s gone, melting away, and next thing you know, Rumlow’s in front of you, listening to his earpiece. “Barnes, hostiles have been spotted on the helicarriers. You need to get over there, protect Project Insight.”

* * *

You hijack an F-12 and pilot it towards the second helicarrier, which seems to have a winged man circling it, like an annoying fruit fly. You disembark the plane in midair and dive down on top of the winged man, dragging him to the surface of the helicarrier with you.

The two of you crash-land in a tangle of limbs, punching each other wildly. With difficulty, you extricate yourself and stand up, and the other man does the same.

The man’s face lights up. “Barnes, my man! Good to see you’re still alive.”

You trade blows with the man, slowly forcing him to the edge.

“Hey, man, let’s talk about this,” the man says in an unconcerned voice, blocking your fists with his forearms. “Look, I know we had a rough start, me punching you and all, but let’s be real, you deserved it, and you know that. ‘On your left.’ Biiit of a dick move.”

“How’s this for a dick move?” You grab one of the man’s wings and dropkick him over the edge. The wing comes off in your hand, and the man, now one-winged, disappears into the clouds.

“Dammit, Barnes,” you hear him say as he falls.

What the Hell kind of game are these hostiles playing at? Why are they pretending to know you?

Never mind that. You don’t have to concern yourself with such questions. You have your mission.

_Eliminate hostiles. Protect Project Insight. Serve your country._

Someone in your headset directs you over to the third helicarrier, where another hostile has been spotted, and you comply. You work your way down to the mainframe area, and sure enough, there’s the asshole with the star-spangled uniform, standing across from you on the metal walkway.

“Hey, Buck,” the man says, half soft, half steel.

Buck? That’s not your name. Your name is James Buchanan Barnes. Buchanan… Buck… it sounds like something someone could have called you once, maybe. You think of the red-haired woman, the winged man. They’ve all treated you with such familiarity, but you’ve only seen them before in pictures. What are you missing?

“I’m gonna need to get past ya real quick.”

Your hand tightens on the butt of your rifle. “No can do, pal.”

“People are gonna die, Bucky. I can’t let that happen.” He inches forward. “Please don’t make me do this.”

“I’m not making you do anything,” you say, and you pull out your rifle and deliver a spray of bullets. The man ducks behind his shield, and the bullets ricochet back. As you duck away from your own bullets, the man sends his shield hurtling towards you at a deadly speed.

Using your metal arm, you punch the shield away. Your shoulder joint bursts into pain, but you power through it, and you meet the man in the middle of the walkway, fists swinging. The two of you are equally matched; you bloody his lip, but he bruises your eye. He might have broken one of your ribs; you’re not sure.

You stumble. The metal grating catches your boot, and the man takes the brief advantage to throw you down hard. Half dazed and with the breath knocked out of you, you watch as the man steps over you, pulls out something small and square from his pocket and heads toward the control center. You grunt and pull yourself up, running after him. The man removes one of the chips from the wiring, but before he can insert his own, you run and tackle him, and the chip goes flying into the air.

Eyes wide, the man follows the chip, jumping over the edge of the railing and landing heavily on the glass below. You jump after him, and on the lower level the two of you circle around, eyeing each other warily, the chip lying on the ground somewhere to the side.

“What’re you doing, Buck,” the man sighs, not so much a question as a lament. At the disapproving tone of his voice, you feel a note of shame, which you quickly force away.

“Following orders, what else?” You don’t mean to be conversing with the hostile, and you could take him down just fine without uttering a word, but here you are, having a chat in the middle of a fist fight.

The man shakes his head stiffly. “Come on, Buck. You’re better than that.”

You think about what Pierce had called you. _The bullet that brings America forward._

The man breaks eye contact with you to glance at the chip on the ground, and you notice. You both dive for it at the same time. You get there first, closing your metal fist around the small object. However, the man doesn’t let you celebrate your victory for long. He delivers a strong uppercut to your jaw and then grabs your other arm and twists it back into a tight hold.

“Drop it!” he shouts. “Drop it!”

You try to fight back, but the other man is amazingly strong. You can feel your arm being stretched backwards, until finally, your shoulder dislocates. You scream in pain and release your hold on the chip. The man immediately grabs it and sprints off, climbing back up towards the control center.

You lay on the ground in pain, but you’re not done yet. After all, you’ve got a mission. Slowly, you force yourself to your knees, then to your feet. Using your metal hand, you pull out your pistol and let off two shots that hit their mark. The man falls back down to your level, bleeding from two holes in his abdomen.

You pounce on him, aiming for his face with your one working arm.

_Eliminate hostiles. Protect Project Insight. Serve…_

Out of breath, you stop swinging for a moment.

“Buck—”

“Stop! I don’t fucking know you!” you growl, and your anger renewed, you throw another punch just to shut the man up. “I don’t know you!”

“But I know you,” the man argues, and the certainty in his voice stirs something within you. “My name is Steve Rogers, and I’m your friend. But I’m not your conscience, Bucky. Never was.”

The man shakily raises a hand, and surprisingly, you let him. He reaches into his pocket, pulls out the chip and offers it to you. Your breathing shallow, you grasp it gently.

You stare at the chip in your hand, and you—

* * *

You don’t remember life before Steve. That’s not Pierce’s fault; you never remembered life before Steve. You met Steve somewhere in that hazy period between birth and early childhood, and the memory is lost to time.

Steve had always been there. Through thick and thin, through sickness and health, through detentions and fire escapes and classrooms cloudy with chalk dust and fights in back alleys, fists bloody. When Tiffany Roberts gifted you with your first kiss at age ten, Steve was the first person you told, all the dirty details included. When Mr. Hayes finally gave you that raise you’d been asking for, the first thing you did was buy a chocolate bar for your winter-starved best friend.

Steve had never not been there. Even when you’d went off to war, you got his letters, in his cramped little handwriting, every week without fail. Even after the letters stopped coming (because nobody’s letters were coming, because things were getting bad and your men needed bullets more than they needed comforting words from loved ones) he’d kept you company in your sleep. You’d dream that you two were back in your ratty Brooklyn apartment, Steve lazily sketching the sun that streamed through the dirty windows. Even after, he—well.

People are not meant to be so close. When you grow up as half of a whole, where is the space for the self?

What is Bucky Barnes without Steve Rogers?

 

_veteranfriendsergeantwarherothewintersoldiernothingaweaponakillingmachineagoodman_

 

* * *

—stand up. You run over to the control center—quickly, no time for second thoughts—and jam the chip into one of the slots. Maybe at this point, you’d feel some doubt, regret for your actions, but no time for that either. Almost immediately, everything starts shaking and falling apart, as the helicarriers destroy each other. You turn your thoughts to escape, when—

You spot the star-spangled man’s limp body sliding towards one of the gaping holes in the lower windows. You can barely take a step before his body slips out, falling thousands of feet towards the Potomac. He’ll survive the impact, maybe, but not what comes after.

“Not on my watch, asshole,” you mutter, as you take a running start and swan dive off the edge into the air.

* * *

It’s absolute Hell, swimming with a metal arm and a dislocated shoulder and an unconscious man in tow, but you manage to make it to shore without drowning. You gently lay the man on the sand, and you scramble to check his pulse and breathing.

There. And there. The man is alive. No, Steve. That’s his name, you remember. But from when? He’d told you his name five minutes ago, but your memory feels earlier, much earlier. This is Steve. You know him. He used to be smaller.

You need to get Steve some medical attention. And you will. But right now, you need a breather, just one or two minutes. Steve’s stable; he won’t die in the meantime. In fact, his bleeding has pretty much stopped already.

For now, you watch as the helicarriers rain fire and debris onto the Potomac, and you think about Pierce and weapons, and about how guns can break or jam or misfire, but they can’t really say no.

* * *

(After. After Steve gets out of surgery and wakes up and tries to apologize to you for pretending to be dead and all this other shit he doesn’t need to apologize for, and you try to apologize to Natasha and Sam for all this shit they say you don’t have to apologize for, and Nick smiles at you with warm eyes and says, “Good to have you back, son.” After that, you’re watching Steve sleep in his hospital bed, when a memory comes to you.

“Hey. Hey, wake up.” You start poking Steve’s unconscious body until it stirs and frowns at you. “I remembered something.”

Steve’s frown quickly disappears, and he sits further up in bed. “Yeah, Buck?”

“Didn’t I tell you not to do anything stupid until I got back?”

Slowly, Steve smiles, a familiar giant, shit-eating grin that has been absent in your life for far too long. “You might've.”

“Hmph,” you grumble. “Didn’t listen to me, huh?”

“Do I ever?” Steve grabs your hand and squeezes it absentmindedly. “Here, guess how long it took for me to do something stupid after you left.”

“I don’t know,” you sigh, long-suffering. “Twelve hours?”

“Twelve minutes, more like.”

You make an unhappy sound in the back of your throat, but it’s inaccurate, really. In truth, you are very, very happy. Hopelessly, utterly, gloriously happy. After all, you have a lot to be thankful for. You’ve got your friends back, and you remember them, too—that’s a plus. Steve used to be dead, and now he’s alive. Pierce used to be alive, and now he’s dead. And you, James Buchanan Barnes, are finally free.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew, I finally finished! Sorry, it took so long. Let me know what you think here or on my [tumblr](http://coldtea.tumblr.com/) ! Constructive criticism is always welcome.


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